The hunter emerges from his lair, hungry eyes scanning his cluttered surroundings.
He quickly adapted to his new environment, like a predator entering a fertile hunting ground, and then a mysterious smile appeared on his face as pale as a corpse.
He opened his arms, embraced nothingness, and enjoyed the darkness.
This chessboard of shadows, this black jungle, this empty mountain peak, here, he feels like home.
But hometown——
However, his memory was not a good place, Aprisis Hive, a city that was too vast.
On its crumbling foundations, where scarred stone and snow-covered ridges meet neat rows of reinforced concrete and steel, the city is built into a deep chasm in the planet, its iron base like the base of a giant, rusted tree. Like roots, coiled in the dark cave, countless industrial grinders continue to expand behind, the cracks billow with smoke like the devil's breath, and a toothless mouth stretches out to the devastated ground.
Above it, the lowest towers and levels grew out of the polished rock like moulds, and many heavy gates came into view, countless roads through the wilderness, and finally into closed spaces, sealed against the cold.
Then it was destroyed - destroyed by his own hand, just as the Primarch had done to his own planet.
After waking up, with urgency and excitement, he left, jumped into the sensational shadows, and transformed into a ghost flashing in the shadows.
This was the enemy's rear, and he should be careful, but he knew there would be no real enemies here.
He climbed over the vertical supports, claws clawing and hooked feet planted, leaping between silent ladders and hanging upside down like a corpse.
He heard the sounds coming from the passages on both sides clearly, so he froze his body and pretended to be a rag on the wall.
In such a chaotic pile of buildings, a huge giant transformed into an invisible figure with unimaginable flexibility, like a midnight presence.
Then, he drew out his claws, stared at the blade and trembled, waiting, every muscle tensing for it.
With every sense running wild and alert, his mind found itself free to wander, the past seeping into his memory like oil into a sponge: lingering in the night like death.
The palace was in chaos when the attack came, and his supposed father urged him to stay there, but he chose to flee, rushing through halls and corridors crowded with screaming servants and roaring guards, and into the force field generator room. Although the old tech-priest tried to stop him, he pierced the old monster's only remaining organic eye with the ceremonial dagger given to him by his false father on his tenth name day, taking away his forged genetic key - the false mother. The gift given to him represents an identity that should not be his - initiating the closing process of the palace shield.
After a few minutes, the shields were lowered and the destruction came.
The sound faded away, and he returned to his cold, heartless mood.
He thrust his claws out, as if between his ribs, and slid into a crevice in the rock, letting the darkness swallow him up.
There is no logic in this place. Various simple houses are stacked on top of each other, with messy stairwells between each other. They are flanked by pious statues and missionary pulpits, but they are still chaotic.
Ancient stairs lead to nowhere, tunnels pass through knotted girders and plastic trash, twisted and twisted cables spurt out from the messy partitions, coiling upwards, collapsed tunnels are re-drilled or bypassed, and bulges The water gate opened, making a gurgling sound, and the floor was covered with scaled slime.
This is the largest refugee camp in the Red Sand Mountains, and it is said that there are nearly one million people piled up there.
These people are hopeless, useless, and have nothing, split into criminal gangs large and small, searching for fungi and carrion in the dark——
In his opinion, these are not humans, but animals, rats.
The Hunter felt a twinge of nausea; if this was repayment for loyalty to the Emperor, he had chosen his side wisely.
He withdrew his thoughts, focused all his attention on the footsteps of the approaching prey, and let go of his right hand - at its tip, the hook of the gauntlet was slightly bent.
Two men came out of the tunnel next to him. They were wearing jackets and iron beards. They spoke softly and walked cautiously, like they had been liars all their lives.
In these caves, caution is as natural as breathing.
This does them no good.
In at least two breaths, the first one was already dead. Before his brain even realized the threat, a pair of sharp blades rushed towards his face from the shadows, sliding across his eye sockets like icicles.
The hunter shook off the body and emerged from the alcove, facing the second man.
In his memory, the voice of the master he killed was hissing, like pouring sand, flooding his mind:
"Show them what you can do, steal their hope, like the shadow steals the light, show them yourself...the weapons are much the same, but the effect remains the same, fear, fear is the weapon."
In the corridor, standing in a pool of his fallen friend's blood, the second man looked into the nightmarish face, trembling, choking, and began to scream.
"look at me."
The hunter said, extending his hand to the other party.
Of course, the man couldn't see anything, he was simply blind.
They are all.
By the end of the second day, there were twelve of the prey, seven men and five women.
The hunter was astonished by the variety of their reactions, most screaming from the start, when he met them, when he flexed his claws and growled, when he painted their terror with a brush like an artist, in When the suffocating horror gouache was carefully added to the fear oil, his heart surged at the justice of what he was doing.
And they threw back their little heads and screamed.
However, some people were silent, staring in shock, like silent animals - black eyes bulging, lips twitching, faces pale.
In these cases, hunters paw them off and slide them through layers of debris to sheltered spots where they can leisurely recover their voices.
Then you can start screaming.
One of the women impressed him so much that she knelt down and began to pray, some muttering to the Emperor.
The angry hunter cut off her fingers one by one, enjoying the change in her demeanor.
One of the men tried to fight him, which was insignificant.
He lurked among the ruins, in the corner of a settlement teeming with refugees, considering this palette of horrors like a painter contemplating mixing new colors.
But always, this joy is tempered by hatred, rage, and anxiety about failure.
What, he asked himself, had he learned from his killings? What did he discover in his many works, in his many depictions?
there is nothing.
He painstakingly depicts what he witnessed on his hunting grounds, carving it lovingly into the skin of each victim, yet their ignorance remains intact.
Ever since he killed his former master and truly took control of the warband, there was always something eating at him, gnawing at his soul.
He staggered through the darkness, lost in thought, venting his rage on the broken masonry of the ancient building.
But none of this helps.
So, once again, the emptiness struck after the hunt, he left here, crossed the long distance, and returned to the place where he started.
The servants said, is that Sar Bodong, or some other Gar Mo Zejie, seems to have something to ask him?
But he didn't care and didn't really want to pay attention.
It was daybreak and he was tired——
